Electronic modulation and reaction-pathway optimization on three-dimensional seaweed-like NiSe@NiMn LDH heterostructure to trigger effective oxygen evolution reaction

Yihua Cao; Zhi Li; Xueli Yin; Yonghao Gan; Ying Ye; Run Cai; Qi Wang; Bo Feng; Xiaoping Dai; Weiyu Song

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.12.073

Electronic modulation and reaction-pathway optimization on three-dimensional seaweed-like NiSe@NiMn LDH heterostructure to trigger effective oxygen evolution reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Mar 15:658:528-539. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.12.073. Epub 2023 Dec 14.

Authors

Yihua Cao¹, Zhi Li², Xueli Yin¹, Yonghao Gan¹, Ying Ye¹, Run Cai¹, Qi Wang¹, Bo Feng¹, Xiaoping Dai³, Weiyu Song⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemical Engineering and Environment, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China.
² College of Science, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China.
³ College of Chemical Engineering and Environment, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China; State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China. Electronic address: daixp@cup.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Science, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China. Electronic address: songwy@cup.edu.cn.

PMID: 38128196
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.12.073

Abstract

The development of low-cost and high-efficiency electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is essential to produce high-purity hydrogen in large scale. Herein, a three-dimensional (3D) seaweed-like hierarchical structure was fabricated using two-dimensional (2D) NiMn LDH nanosheets wrapped on one-dimensional (1D) NiSe nanowires with nickel foam (NF) as a substrate (NiSe@NiMn LDH/NF) via hydrothermal and electrodeposition processes. Owing to the strong interfacial synergy, 3D seaweed-like hierarchical structure, higher conductivity, and strong structural stability, the NiSe@NiMn LDH/NF exhibited superior OER performance with an overpotential of 287 mV at 100 mA cm^-2, and stably operated for 160 h at large current. Moreover, the overall water splitting system with NiSe@NiMn LDH/NF as the anode and Pt/C/NF as the cathode exhibited a low cell voltage of 1.59/1.64 V to reach 50/100 mA cm^-2, and excellent stability for 110 h at 300 mA cm^-2. The density function theory (DFT) calculations unveiled that NiSe@NiMn LDH enabled the interfacial synergy, reallocating the electron density at the interface, and further weakening the energy barrier of OH* by strengthening chemical bonds with OH* intermediates to improve the intrinsic OER activity.

Keywords: Density functional theory; Electronic modulation; NiSe@NiMn LDH; Oxygen evolution reaction; Reaction pathway optimization.